


but you'll never see the price it costs (the scars collected all their lives)

by GhostofBeltanesPast



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Major Depression, Suicidal Ideation, Whump, look I am a Trauma Gay okay, this is just me processing sad bad feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:14:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27325642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostofBeltanesPast/pseuds/GhostofBeltanesPast
Summary: A collection of gratuitous whump snippets with my favorite sadboi, Nyx Ulric. Because canon didn't make him suffer enough, obvs I have to do even more.
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all...I'd say I'm sorry, but let's be real, I wouldn't be posting this here if I was.
> 
> Please pay attention to the warnings in the tags. Wasn't sure how to tag for it, but this fic is gonna talk now and then about Nyx's dead family, and probably other people being dead. I've got some grief of my own to work through, and while it's not a *huge* feature in this first drabble, it's likely to come up more in subsequent bits.
> 
> Future chapters will also probably touch on fantasy racism as per canon, and you should read or not with that in mind.
> 
> This chapter is more about the immediate aftermath of Nyx moving to Insomnia as a refugee and the emotional toll thereof.

He misses Galahd.  
  
He misses home.  
  
Of course, Insomnia is home, now; a second home, one without the pain of loss so viscerally felt...his childhood home, nothing but rubble. His bar, the bar he ran with Libertus, only a pile of junk after MTs torched it.  
  
His family, buried in the dark, loamy soil, resting in that earthen embrace.  
  
He hates the rain here because it's never enough like home, his first home, to be _right_ \-- but never foreign enough to avoid the memories it always brings.  
  
This grey, cold city...  
  
Sometimes when he closes his eyes and lays in bed, he can almost feel his favorite tree against his back, the wide, splayed branches cradling him so safely he could sleep in her arms and never risk falling. Maybe it's just the busted springs that feel a bit like knots when pressed against flesh that's started to forget the feeling of _home_.  
  
But _this_ is home now.  
  
He swore it would be; pledged his life to king Regis, and gave himself to that duty completely. As soon as he knew he had the aptitude for magic -- everyone was tested, as a matter of course -- he was ready to volunteer.  
  
After all, what else could he do? Twenty years old, his livelihood and home and family taken away. Half the village gone in one night, and more in the days that followed.  
  
_Six_. He'd been young, and dumb. He'd never paid much attention to the attacks elsewhere, never thought he'd be one of the refugees he heard about on the news. He had no idea what it would really be like.  
  
No one had told him that so many would survive the attack but succumb to injuries later.  
  
And no one, no one warned him that some of his friends and neighbors would die by their own hands when the loss became too much to bear, family and home wrenched away from them, forced to live in a city that hated and scorned them; no connection to the land, grey and dead where home was verdant.  
  
It was almost funny, in a horrible, bitter way. He'd talked drunks down from reckless acts more times than he could count, even in two short years, but...somehow when it counted most, the words wouldn't come.  
  
His mouth was drier than Leide at mid-day, his body cold and remote, his head spinning and somehow horribly numb at the same time. Like all of the worst parts of being drunk turned all the way up, and even more helpless.  
  
It had been Libertus who'd talked the girl down; a skinny little thing, maybe seventeen? Her older sister had been one of their classmates, he dimly recalled.  
  
He never did hear what exactly had happened to her.  
  
But Libertus, Ramuh bless him, had always been better at offering comfort, and he knew what to say to someone grieving like that.  
  
Truth be told, Nyx was a bit jealous of that ability; he was just as much of a people person, sure -- maybe more so -- but comforting someone during a crisis with no certainty, no stability, no security? He couldn't look at someone and lie like that, telling them it would be alright and there was more to live for when he didn't believe it at all himself.  
  
Maybe that was the problem.  
  
He wanted to die just as much as she did, wanted to go _home_ and claw his way through the soil until he could rest his head on his mother's shoulder again, feel his sister's arms around him, their little family less broken when together...  
  
...and let the soft earth swallow him, too.  
  
How could he tell that girl that duty was all that kept him alive?  
  
The desperate knowledge that maybe, maybe if he could learn fast enough, he could stop it from happening the next time? How could he possibly tell her that without an obligation to serve, he would be joining her, not talking her down?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For as long as he's alive, Insomnia is home. For better or worse.

He doesn’t really know what happened.   
  
When it started, or when it changed, for that matter.   
  
But somewhere along the line, Insomnia stopped being just a place to live, and it started being…   
  
...somehow...   
  
_ Home _ .   
  
The sparse apartment took on at least some hints of a home; a stack of books beside his armchair -- an armchair that was  _ his _ , unlike the other chairs usually occupied by Crowe and Libertus when they visited -- hell, the fact that he even had three chairs at all, settled into the place enough that he was willing to waste space on furniture that had no purpose outside of socializing.   
  
It’s been a long six years, a  _ lonely _ six years. He’d lived at home, before, with his family -- so being on his own? At first he hadn’t been able to sleep without the radio on, and even that was a toss-up. But staying with someone else, anyone else…   
  
Hearing another person breathing, slow and deep and even with sleep, always took him right back to that night. The last bit of peace and security they had, not knowing that Selena would-   
  
If he’d just  _ known _ , he would’ve read the story from her literature class that she wanted to show him. He wouldn’t have been so impatient, waving her off to work on plans and barely looking up to say goodnight when she finally slunk off to bed.   
  
At first the loneliness was strange, but now...well, now, there’s a strange sort of peace to it. He sets his own schedule, never has to wait up for someone, goes where he pleases after work and never worries that someone else might be waiting…   
  
And every morning, he wakes to an empty, quiet room, the radio and TV long since left off on any but the worst of nights.   
  
It doesn’t feel foreign anymore, to be alone. It’s not strange to hook up with girls or guys or whoever’s interested, always going elsewhere -- somehow it feels too intimate to bring them home.   
  
Because, well...it  _ is _ home. Even if there’s no one there for them to meet.   
  
The idea of it, of bringing someone into a place like that?   
  
He’s not about to open himself up again like that.   
  
Nyx is willing to make his home in Insomnia -- or, rather, he couldn’t seem to stop himself -- but this isn’t the kind of home a person shares.   
  
He’s not the sharing kind, anymore. At least, he doesn’t think so.   
  
It’s solitary, quiet, confined -- and just the right size.   
  
When Crowe had first seen it, she’d scoffed and called it a jail cell; maybe there was something to that, after all. Making his home in his own personal prison...but that was the sort of melodramatic, maudlin thinking Libertus would make fun of him for, if he knew.   
  
It’s undeniable, though, that somewhere along the line, he settled in. Stopped dreaming of going home, itching to feel the cool, damp air blowing off the coast, and smell the rain dripping off the leaves. Even if he still hasn’t unpacked all his boxes yet, just stacks things on top of them instead, it’s so familiar that it’s mundane.   
  
Six long, lonely years in a dull, grey city.   
  
The only green things he can surround himself with now are whatever furnishings he can find, usually secondhand at the newest; he’s never been the kind to keep plants. Never took it up back home, and being gone on missions now, there’s no guarantee he’ll be able to keep them alive.   
  
Then again, he can’t even guarantee he’ll keep  _ himself _ alive.   
  
For as long as he is, though. This is home, for better or worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes I know it's been days with no PF update and I am v sorry D: life has been, ah...bad, let's say. The holidays have not been kind to me or my family and it's been a lot to deal with. I'll update as I can, but at least for the next week or two, updates are probably going to be weekly at most.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who leaves comments and kudos <3 This particular work is very much self-indulgent fic, and I don't expect a lot of folks to enjoy the gratuitous whump, but sometimes I don't want to give Best Boi nice things; sometimes I just wanna twist the knife a lil bit deeper. And that's what this is for lol.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please feel free to drop me a line and a kudos if you liked it, and any ideas you have for further sufferpuppeting lmao.
> 
> Title from the League theme because Worlds just happened and something about the song just feels very Nyx.
> 
> There will be more works with drabbles -- there are two planned at the mo, one for happy and fluffy things, and another one for PWP. As cathartic as tormenting poor Nyx is, it is also cathartic to give him nice things instead of the [redacted] canon and its [redacted] [redacted].


End file.
